Facebook bug gave third parties access to photos for 6.8 million accounts

In this photo dated March 29, 2018, the logo for social media giant Facebook appears on screens at the Nasdaq MarketSite, in New York's Times Square. A recent glitch allowed third parties to access more user photos than they should've been able to access. (AP Photo/Richard Drew, FILE) (Richard Drew)

“When someone gives permission for an app to access their photos on Facebook, we usually only grant the app access to photos people share on their timeline,” explained Tomer Bar of Facebook. “In this case, the bug potentially gave developers access to other photos, such as those shared on Marketplace or Facebook Stories. The bug also impacted photos that people uploaded to Facebook but chose not to post.”

Next week, Facebook will make a tool available to help developers determine which accounts were affected by the glitch so that people can delete the photos from the app. They will also alert users that may have been affected by the app and link them to a Help Center post on the bug.

Facebook also recommends that Facebook users check out apps with which they have shared photos to see which photos the apps can access.

Facebook’s data breaches have damaged its reputation. In April, CEO Mark Zuckerberg was grilled by Congress in hearings focused on Facebook’s role in the Cambridge Analytica data scandal, in which the company swiped information from millions of users without their consent.